"I wanted to show some of my early stuff. This was a Sunday from Sept. 16, 1990. I remember Lee Salem, who bought Overboard and gave me my chance to be a cartoonist, looked at my art and said, "You'll get better." I used a lot of silent panels before the punchline in those days. Loved that comedic pause, you know?"

"This is the first appearance of Louie in the strip. I guess I didn't think of him as a lab in those early appearances, or maybe this was my best attempt at drawing a dog. I remember worrying about whether I could keep thinking of ideas for him. Then he just kind of took OVER the whole thing."

"None of the guys have had much luck with women, and looking through these old ones for my 25th, I wish I'd been able to dream up a solid recurring female character. It wasn't for lack of trying, believe me, and I'm still working on it. Meanwhile, I still like to make the guys fail entertainingly."

"The mice just showed up one day out of nowhere in my sketchpad, and they just kept coming back. I think of them as having this wonderful little universe behind the ship's walls, and I like how everyone - dogs, pirates, mice - just kind of gets along. And, I like how the mice won't take any BS from anybody."

"I had to show my little tribute to my dog, Basil. He was my constant buddy for years, a beautiful black lab, a very noble goof, and I got tons of ideas just watching him trying to make sense of his world. My neighbor once told me, "Even in the worst storm, I'll look out, and sure enough, there you two idiots'll be, walking by!"